For the second time in two years, change is afoot at one of Lakeland's revered Italian eateries, and it involves a familiar name — Mario Scarpa. He's back. Sort of.

By ERIC PERATHE LEDGER

For the second time in two years, change is afoot at one of Lakeland's revered Italian eateries, and it involves a familiar name — Mario Scarpa.He's back. Sort of.Scarpa, who sold his eponymous restaurant on Edgewood Drive in 2006 will again glide between kitchen and dining room, greeting customers, tinkering with the menu.Gone is the name La Porta Rossa, Italian for the red door, a vestige owing to one of the restaurant's former partners, Richard DeAngelis, who operates a wine bar of the same name. In coming weeks, a new name will appear on the marquee — Mario and Patrick's. A new menu, trotted out a week ago to 100 guests answering a Facebook invitation, features such Scarpa classics as eggplant rollatini, baked brie and veal cannelloni.Scarpa's presence dials back the clock to the 1980s and 1990s, when he and his wife, Jane, held sway over one of the city's more popular restaurants, where regulars were treated like family.The change reflects a new management structure. Lakeland businessman Bruce Lyon is no longer a partner, said Patrick Rene Schaefer, who now is sole manager/owner along with his wife, Lisa.Lyon, Schaefer, DeAngelis and others who invested money in the restaurant but had no say in day-to-day operations purchased the business in May 2011 from Michael Srednicki and his wife, Julie Marshall-Srednicki, who bought it from Scarpa in 2006.According to Patrick Schaefer, who also serves as the restaurant's executive chef, he and Lyon had an amicable parting that freed him to restore the business to its halcyon days. Lyon could not be reached Wednesday afternoon for comment."There's a lot of heritage here," Schaefer said, "and a lot of honor to Mario."Tonight and Friday night, the Scarpas will be greeting customers, some of whom are old friends."We're getting together and we're changing (some) things back," said Scarpa, 78. "A lot of the old customers I ran into, they miss it. Even though Patrick does some of the dishes (I used to do), they're not quite the same."Schaefer, formerly of Armani's at the Grand Hyatt Tampa Bay, will continue dreaming up new dishes with a more fanciful, Mediterranean flair. But the new menu will reflect more of the traditional Italian pasta dishes with a lower price point, somewhere in the $8 to $15 range."There's been this cloud over our head that we're expensive," Schaefer said. "I have his (Scarpa's) old menu, and he was more expensive than I am."The restaurant also will be getting a new facade, along with improvements to the parking lot. "We're going to have a new look," Schaefer said.